


Black Hole

by buffymysavior



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, F/M, Gen, Stranger Things 3 Spoilers, Takes Place During Battle of Starcourt, mentions of mileven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 10:38:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19789153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffymysavior/pseuds/buffymysavior
Summary: Sometimes I feel like I’m...like I’m just some kind of black hole or something, he’d said, and she’d turned to him, tears in her eyes for a much different reason.A black hole? she’d asked.Yeah, it’s a...you know, it’s this thing in outer space, it’s like it sucks everything towards it and destroys it, he'd said.





	Black Hole

When El first finds Joyce’s eyes from across the Starcourt parking lot, all she feels is confused. _Where’s Hop? He’s supposed to be back by now, why isn’t he back, he should be back—_

Then, staring into Joyce’s tear-drowned eyes, it hits her. _Gone_ , she thinks, even the voice in her head choked with tears the way she is right now. Holding back a sob, the tears behind her eyes threatening to explode more than her powers ever had, the next words that register are _black hole_.

Without warning, the memory plays on a loop in her head, the words seeming to echo louder and louder the way the volume on the TV sometimes would whenever Hop was trying to drown out whatever sappy thing her and Mike were saying to each other. _Sometimes I feel like I’m...like I’m just some kind of black hole or something_ , he’d said, and she’d turned to him, tears in her eyes for a much different reason.

 _A black hole?_ she’d asked.

 _Yeah, it’s a...you know, it’s this thing in outer space, it’s like it sucks everything towards it and destroys it_ , he’d said.

At the time, El hadn’t fully understood what Hop meant, the way Mike would sometimes make a reference to a movie El hadn’t seen and go on a long-winded explanation about it to help her understand, though it mostly went over her head anyway. But now, as she thinks of her friends, sporting bloody noses and bruised cheeks, of Max, crying until El thought she’d never stop, of Mike, who looks like he’d never been so tired in his whole life, of Billy, lying lifeless on the floor and covered in blood stains that shouldn’t have been his, of Benny and Barb and names that begin to run together until she finally reaches _Hop_ , a choked sob escapes her throat. Now, two hundred and forty-one days later, El finally understands the way Hop, Mike, everyone so often ask her if she does.

 _Black hole_ , El thinks, her legs giving out from underneath her as she rocks back and forth, tears pouring like the storm Mike had first found her in.

This time, the word _gone_ comes second.


End file.
